10 Arrested in Federal Investigation of Internet Child Pornography

By BENJAMIN WEISER

Published: July 10, 2002

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn announced the arrests yesterday of 10 people in a continuing investigation of a child-pornography ring on the Internet.

The authorities have called the investigation Operation Candyman, after the name of an Internet Web site that the F.B.I. says was used to display and trade child pornography and that it shut down in February 2001.

The investigation was first announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft in March, and has resulted in the arrests of more than 100 people nationwide, including 35 people in the New York City area, prosecutors said.

The 10 arrested yesterday include a United States Army sergeant stationed at West Point and two former New York City police officers.

David N. Kelley, the deputy United States attorney in Manhattan, noted that a subway conductor, a construction company owner and a retired firefighter were among those charged.

''As you can see,'' Mr. Kelley said, ''those who collect and receive images of sexual abuse of children are not nameless faces lurking in cyberspace, nor are they shadowy figures leering in a dark alley. But they come from every cross-section of our society and both our urban and suburban neighborhoods.''

Prosecutors said that the children depicted in the images found in the possession of the defendants were 12 years old and younger.

''We're not talking about teenagers,'' said Barbara D. Underwood, the chief assistant United States attorney in Brooklyn. ''We're talking about children.''

The Candyman Web site advertised itself as a group ''for people who love kids,'' according to an F.B.I. affidavit filed in the New York case. The F.B.I. investigation into the group began in January 2001, the affidavit says, when an agent, acting under cover, sent an e-mail message and joined the Web site.

The site made available to members about 100 still and video images, the majority of which were of prepubescent minors engaged in sexual activities, the affidavit says. In about a month, the agent received about 500 e-mail messages, many of which included images of child pornography, the affidavit contends. One image depicted a nude girl about 10 years old performing oral sex on an adult male, the affidavit says.

Prosecutors in New York would not offer additional details about the children depicted in the images they said were in the possession of the defendants, except to say that each child depicted in the images was real, and a victim of abuse.

The F.B.I. affidavit says that early last year, the bureau obtained through a grand jury subpoena 3,397 e-mail addresses of people who were members of the group site. In New York, prosecutors said, the bureau's Crimes Against Children Squad then worked with prosecutors to identify the people behind the screen names.

Prosecutors said that each of the 10 defendants was charged with possession of child pornography, and that if convicted, could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. One man faces an additional charge of receiving child pornography, which carries a 15-year term, the government said.